Are there any unhappy Democrats?

If one reads the media, barely. Everyone, from Planned Parenhood to Moveon, from Kucinich to Michael Moore is blissfully content and proud of the Heritage Foundation healthcare/insurance/reform, offshore drilling, teachers firings – you name it.

Of course, my trips to B0botland find that, beyond the dozen or two operatives there, everyone else is hopping mad.

The media loves-loves-loves this tea party story, but the tea partiers really aren’t anything new, and they don’t represent a very big group of voters. There is a lot of anger out there, but most of it is righteous anger that Democrats can and should tap into – anger that Wall Street and other bad actor big companies have been allowed to destroy our economy, and that no one is taking them on for it.

Duh! Welcome to my world! I have been invisible since 2000, as a Robbedvoter. Only very rarely the voter discontent would be brought up and then there were only blacks, and mostly blacks in Florida.

Disgruntled Democrats join the Tea Party

anectodal examples of Obama voters are given. When it comes to numbers though, CNN is more than stingy

To be sure, the number of Democrats in the Tea Party movement is small. A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows that while 96 percent of Tea Party activists identify themselves as either Republican or Independent, only 4 percent say they are Democrats.

Maybe they simply had enough of being invisible and feeling isolated politically.

Like the rest of us who are keeping our political beliefs and find ourselves miles away from the party which went all the way to the right.

Some of us voted against Obama as we saw this coming. Some voted for him and are only now waking up to the reality. You can pretty much check any of my recent posts to hear their muted voices

. Sometimes I have to wonder if he has any real convictions.

Is there anything he won’t backtrack on?

99. I’m sure he does

its just that we have no clue what they REALLY are.

100. He firmly believes that he should be the president.

106. to be fair, he did get that puppy

08. Point taken.

Forgot about the puppy.

169. But not from a shelter, as he originally indicated that he would

really; there appears to be NOTHING.

73. yes, he even managed to fuck that up

not getting a pound dog as he said on the campaign trail.

Everything else, apparently, is negotiable

But unless they all decide to make themselves heard in November, they’ll be as irrelevant as their former activist organizations now turned propaganda outlets: Moveon, Planned Parenthood, NARAL etc.

And they’ll have to get used to the frustration of the narrative that only the Tea Party is the opposition these days. You are either with them or with Obama.

And if you are a woman, that goes double for you. You either celebrate the curtailing of your rights or else, not even those B0bots who are fed up with Obama are going to notice you. Oh, and in the Tea Party you’ll be more racist than anyone and ridiculed more as having the same scary lady parts as Sarah Palin by the Bobots. And all that, while working for your own opression. So, good luck, wherever you end up.

Come to think of it, it’s a meme constructed to empower the status quo, not the Tea Party. It’s designed to project the image where the whole country is united around Teh One – except for a few fringe right winger – insert epithet of choice to go with it.

Of course polls belie this – but push this narrative long enough, it may affect polls too.

So, operatives out there, don’t complain. Embrace it.

Just like I embrace my invisibility. It’s a good thing for a witness to have, after all.

He, among other things writes about the self-defeating effects of the over the top attacks on the Tea party

Tell the truth. Let’s be real. When it comes to the simplest political judgments, is anyone dumber than we are? Those savvy Big Interests cheer and applaud when we liberals say things like that. Their tasks become much, much easier.

What Somerby fails to see (sharp that he is) is that the so called liberals – access bloggers, politicians that he mentions are now talking for the party – which has nothing whatsoever to do with “liberal” anything anymore.

In order to avoid quoting Nader, I’ll go to another Illinois Senator, from 1932 who :

advised progressives not to expect too much from the Democratic Party. It was, he wrote, “maintained by the business interests” as a kind of “lifeboat.” Whenever the GOP ship sprung a leak—whenever Republicans were no longer willing or able to do business’s bidding—the interests simply piled into the other party and made their escape.

Rangel, Digby, Moveon, Obama & friends are just doing the bidding these days. Will they be able to maintain political power for long? With the increased effectiveness of money in politics, it’s really up to business.

10 comments

Oh I think there’s plenty of unhappy Dems out there. I have a feeling that most D’s in Congress can barely stomach the O at this point, but who wants to risk having an unholy racial war of smears used against them?

That’s probably what draws so many disgruntled D’s to Sarah Palin & the tea party. When no one else had the guts to take him on, she stepped up and did it. And ironically, his nasty little smear campaign backfired and turned her into a popular (and very wealthy) celebrity.

Thanks for that quote at the end. That’s why I call Democrats the Lifeboat Party.

Paul Douglas didn’t become a senator until 1949. Wikipedia has a writeup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Douglas) well worth reading. Fun fact: “When Senator Brooks refused to debate him, Douglas debated an empty chair, switching from seat to seat as he provided both his own answers and Brooks’.”

I’m especially concerned about the national Planned Parenthood vs. the local offices.

I left money to the NM PP in my will I made last year. When I called them to ask what they needed (where to say the money should go) they also told me that the local PPs’ are really not involved that much with the national…If I recall correctly, they have to PAY to be a member, but really do all their own local fundraising, etc.

Here in NM, their ABQ office is constantly picketed and they have a real burden since NM has the 1st or 2nd highets teen pregnancy rate. On top of that the culture and the Church are always at odds with what they do.

They just fought and won the right to offer the abortion pill in their clinic. And, they fought to avoid having state funds being cut off…and, thankfully, those funds were saved.

The point is…I will still continue to donate to the local because they are NOT the national! They cannot afford to lose donations or else women will be even worse off!!